But as the great body of sorcerers were about matched in point of skill, it followed that the parties employing them were so likewise.

Hence arose those interminable contests, in which many moons were spent, both parties toiling after their common destruction.
Indeed, to say nothing of the obstinacy evinced by their employers, it was marvelous, the pertinacity of the sorcerers themselves.

To the very last tooth in their employer's pouches, they would stick to their spells; never giving over till he was financially or physically defunct.
But much as they were vilified, no people in Minda were half so disinterested as they.

Certain indispensable conditions secured, some of them were as ready to undertake the perdition of one man as another; good, bad, or indifferent, it made little matter.
What wonder, then, that such abominable mercenaries should cause a mighty deal of mischief in Minda; privately going about, inciting peaceable folks to enmities with their neighbors; and with marvelous alacrity, proposing themselves as the very sorcerers to rid them of the annoyances suggested as existing.
Indeed, it even happened that a sorcerer would be secretly retained to work spells upon a victim, who, from his bodily sensations, suspecting something wrong, but knowing not what, would repair to that self-same sorcerer, engaging him to counteract any mischief that might be brewing.

And this worthy would at once undertake the business; when, having both parties in his hands, he kept them forever in suspense; meanwhile seeing to it well, that they failed not in handsomely remunerating him for his pains.
At one time, there was a prodigious excitement about these sorcerers, growing out of some alarming revelations concerning their practices.
In several villages of Minda, they were sought to be put down.